Time Vortex
by Miko Akako
Summary: Spoilers for 'Parting of the Ways' X Rose's experience of the Time Vortex


**Miko: **So I've had 'Parting of the Ways' on repeat for the past day, and I had to write something about it. Forgive any mistakes I've made with this. Review and let me know what you think of it. (:

**Dislaimer: **I own nothing.

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**Time Vortex**

Rose didn't know what to expect. She had seen the light once before, and it was so beautiful, even from a distance. This time, it was shining on her. She couldn't keep her eyes closed, so she opened them and looked into the light that was brighter and infinitely more painful than the sun. She let the pain wash over her, consuming her body, mind and soul. She wanted to scream, but she seemed to have no control over her vocal chords. She thought her body must be contorting in pain and fear, but if it was she was beyond feeling it. Just as she thought the pain would kill her before she could get to the Doctor, it ceased.

Now the light was kind, soothing her frayed nerves as if apologizing for the ordeal it had just put her through. She still couldn't feel her body, so she tried to move her hand to her face. Nothing happened, and she began to panic. The light sent a warm pulse through her body, drawing the fear away and at the same time sweeping her conscience closer to it and further from her body. She fought for a moment, but gave up.

_I know you, Rose Tyler. Why did you break me? Why do you hurt me with your alien mind?_ The light spoke to her consciousness. It sounded feminine, with a musical high pitched voice that would have sent Rose's human body doubled over in pain. Now, without ears to hear it, she only noticed the beauty.

_I need to get to the Doctor. I have to save him._ She clung to the image of the man who had come to her in her darkest hour and showed her the stars. His face was the only thing that penetrated the light, and it kept her sane in the power that sang around her.

_You should not have looked into me. No being can see me and live. You knew that. You looked anyway. Why?_ She heard emotion in the timeless voice. Suddenly, she realized this was the TARDIS. She also knew that it would not lie to her. She was going to die. For a moment she fought against the light, trying to deny the truth. The TARDIS waited for her to settle.

_ I do not want to die._ She said softly, if she had spoken it through her lips it would have been a whisper. _I must save the Doctor, though. I will do anything to save him. Please, help me. Take me back to him._ She felt something move, and realized it was the TARDIS moving through time and space. She hoped it understood that there was no wiggle room in this move. She could not afford to arrive the next day, or even the next hour. It had to be timed perfectly.

_I will take you. It is not his time to die. From there you must save him. _Rose felt herself return to her body with a jolt. But with the return of control, there was also a return of the pain. It burned along every nerve as if the sun had been forced into her brain. She could see the entire universe. She saw the past, the present, the futures. She saw the Time War, and felt the Doctor's pain as he had to destroy his entire race. She followed him through time and space, watching as he grew and changed until he became the man he was in the present moment. She followed the thread of time in the future, watching each separate future as it unfolded. Then she saw the present future, in almost all of them she would die before she could save the Doctor.

_ Save the Doctor. Keep him safe. I…I will keep the Doctor safe._ The small part of her that was still Rose Tyler repeated the words, the only thing that kept her from loosing herself to the pain of seeing everything. The TARDIS stopped and she opened the doors without touching them. She saw her Doctor lying on the ground, still alive. He asked her a question, and Rose Tyler and the TARDIS spoke together, burning the human vocal chords with the power infused in the voice.

"_I looked into the TARDIS. And the TARDIS looked into me_." Every moment she felt the danger of being swept away, through the universe. The power that was flowing through her rebelled at remaining in one place for so long. Sparks of herself were expanding, floating away and taking a little more of Rose Tyler with them. Only her affection, and the TARDIS' affection, for the Doctor kept her from loosing herself.

"You looked into the Time Vortex. No one is supposed to do that." Speaking was too hard. She could not form a reply. From the corner of her being, she saw the Dalek's beam aimed at her and she laughed. They could not harm her, or the form she had taken. She neutralized their power and forced herself to speak again.

"_I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself." _She spoke only for the Doctor's sake. She did not need to tell herself this, she knew it, had always known it, would always know it as fact. "_I take the words – I scatter them. In time and space. A message to lead myself here." _Her human limb responded and the words, which were part of herself now moved, and she moved with them. She put them on every planet in every time. She planted them in the mouths of those who needed to know them, and at the same time listened to the Doctor speaking to her.

"Rose. You've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now. You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're gonna burn!" She turned her human eyes to him. Rose turned her human eyes to him. The pain was too terrible. She had to end this now. She did not know how long until the words her Doctor spoke became true.

"_I want you safe. My Doctor."_ Both Rose and the TARDIS spoke the words, but it was Rose who cried. It was the human still fighting to live that made the throat catch in the midst of the sentence. It was Rose who saw and analyzed the emotion in the Doctors eyes even as the light inside her told her what it was. "_Protected from the false god." _The Dalek spoke, and its voice grated on her nerves, drawing her human eyes away from the Time Lord sprawled on the ground before her.

_"You are tiny."_ She saw the Dalek emperors past and present and future, and rebelled against it. _"I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence and I divide them." _It was so easy to pull apart the Dalek. They were like a breath on the wind. She just thought it, and they were in their forms no more. They blew away on the breeze as if they had never existed.

_"Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies." _The gestures were Rose. She did not need to move to control the atoms of the world. She was pulled apart as each Dalek splitted. She was splitting herself. But that part of her was not hurt. Only the human body felt pain. And the body was slowing. Soon, it too would turn to dust.

"_The Time War ends."_ She saw and felt all the pain and deaths from the Time War, the greatest war, and ended it. She pulled the atoms apart one by one, in the blink of a human eye and a million years. Time had no meaning to her anymore. The being that was Rose Tyler was being pulled apart too. Her Doctor was safe. Her mission accomplished. She could finally stop the pain. Before the light could pull her away, she heard a voice with human ears and focused on it.

" – Now stop. Just let go." She wanted to let go. She wanted to abandon herself to time. But she knew that wasn't the let go he meant. He wanted her to lose her power, to become human again.

"_How can I let go of this? I bring life." _Someone who was dead took a breath, and she soared in exultation. Nothing would stop her. She did not know the human who breathed a breath not his own, but that did not matter. She could do anything.

"You cannot control life and death." She looked at the insignificant man lying on the ground. He knew nothing. He was nothing. Only the knowledge that he was someone good stopped her from doing to him what she had done to the Daleks. Rose Tyler was slipping away to the pain again.

"_But I can. The sun and the moon. The day and night. But why do they hurt? I can see everything. All that is. All that was." All that ever could be." _She fought against the light, against the TARDIS. She fought for the Doctor who was reminding her with every word of what this body had been. It had been Rose Tyler. It could be Rose Tyler again. It would never be Rose Tyler. It never had been Rose Tyler. It was Rose Tyler. It was not Rose Tyler. The focus was too hard. It was too small a point in time for her to bear. The pain was exquisite. She couldn't survive it. No human, no mortal creature could have this much knowledge in their brain and live.

_"My head –" _ Rose Tyler fought her way again, looking at the Doctor, hearing every word and absorbing it into herself. At the same time, the Time Vortex was fighting against her. She could not hope to beat it. She was going to die. _"-Is killing me."_

"I think you need a Doctor." She felt his hands on her human hands, and his lips on her human lips, and the pain eased as she stopped fighting. Rose Tyler slipped away, unable to bear the knowledge of what had just happened.

_You are not dead._ She heard the voice in the back of her mind, but it did not hurt her anymore. _But there is a price to pay for seeing all of Time._ _He is going to pay it for you. No one can look into the Time Vortex and live._

_I…am alive._ She whispered. She felt the TARDIS in the back of her mind, nudging her back into consciousness. For a moment she couldn't remember what had happened. Then it started to come back slowly. She felt the TARDIS for a moment, but couldn't remember what significance it had. In the back of her mind, though, she felt a comforting glow that would stay with her. She looked up at the Doctor, and he looked back at her. Suddenly, for a brief shining moment, she understood him and she loved him for all his pain and all his flaws. She would stay with him forever, and maybe, just maybe, she could help erase a small part of the hurt that followed him.


End file.
